Efforts on to roll out One Nation One Ration Card pan-India by March: Food Ministry

The Centre on Wednesday said that implementation of One Nation One Ration Card plan is one of its top priorities and efforts are being made to roll out this facility across the country by March next year.

The One Nation One Ration Card will provide an option to all eligible ration card holders/beneficiaries covered under the National Food Security Act to access their entitlements from anywhere in the country, the Food Ministry said in a statement.

Under the NFSA, the Centre provides 5 kg of foodgrains per person per month to about 80 crore beneficiaries at a highly subsidised price of Rs 2-3 per kg.

Under this plan, the distribution of foodgrains is enabled through nation-wide portability of ration cards through the implementation of IT-driven system by installation of ePoS devices at fair price shops or ration shops, seeding of Aadhaar number of beneficiaries with their ration cards and operationalisation of biometrically authenticated ePoS transactions in the State/UTs.

All States/UTs have shown their willingness to roll out the national portability under the One Nation One Ration Card and almost all of them have signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the food department.

“Presently, the facility of national portability of ration cards under ‘One Nation One Ration Card plan’ is seamlessly enabled in an integrated cluster of 24 States/UTs with effect from August 1, 2020, covering approx. 65 crore beneficiaries (80% of total NFSA population)in these States/UTs,” the statement said.

These states are namely — Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab, Sikkim, Rajasthan, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, J&K, Manipur, Nagaland and Uttarakhand.

“Further, concerted and regular efforts are being made by the department of food and public distribution to enable the facility of One Nation One Ration Card in remaining 12 States/UTs (including 2 DBT Cash Transfer UTs) before March 2021,” it said.